The American Voters’ ‘Rage Against the [Political] Machine’

The voters in this country are having a collective temper tantrum. They’re freaking out, going ballistic, having a meltdown. There’s no telling when the grown-ups take over—in the fall, early next year or only after Election Day 2016.

Businessman Donald Trump, a modern day T.B. Barnum, has touch a nerve in the American psyche. People are fed up and want to hurl the insults, take on the media, and tip over the country’s political structure just as Trump is doing. The establishment isn’t working for them and by extension, their candidates are to be rejected.

These are not men of no substance; at least some of them. Here’s a glance:
• Ben Carson is an extreme conservative despite his Morgan Freeman-like, soothing voice.
• Carly Fiorina is a cut-throat CEO who can find a way to lay YOU off.
• Scott Walker is a tool.
• Mike Huckabee is stuck in the 1950s.
• Jeb Bush IS George W. Bush despite what he says.
• Marco Rubio is lacking in conviction. There are no straight answers.
• Ted Cruz is looking to pick up Trump’s scraps (and was born in Canada anyway).
• Chris Christie’s act wore thin about 10 years ago.
• Rand Paul is a Ron Paul wannabe.
• John Kasich is their best bet for victory and seems reasonable.
• Lindsay Graham is a war monger.
• Rick Perry is still one, big “oops” glasses or not.
• Bobby Jindal is hated by people in his own state.
• Rick Santorum—no mas, por favor, no mas.
• George Pataki IS reasonable but can’t win.
• I don’t know who Jim Gilmore is but he claims to have once governed a state.

What really can be gleaned from this very quick look is that John Kasich would make a fine president (compared to the rest). He is qualified, experienced, from a large state that he turned around, and electable.

But just how loud is this shared citizens’ primal scream? Will it fade once people are really paying attention post-Labor Day resulting in a “summer of Trump?”

If I had a crystal ball, I’d say Trump does in fact fade in favor of Kasich who is surging in New Hampshire or Bush who has been pegged (not unfairly) as unenergetic and boring.

The problem the Republican Party has right now is that its rank and file actually believe in what Trump is saying: they are anti-illegal immigrant; they think the country is weak internationally; their own wages are stagnant; and most of all, they loathe traditional politicians. They despise the gridlocked Congress and detest the status quo. Trump is carrying exactly this message. His insults and personal attacks on a war hero or a female journalists do nothing to detract from his support. He is the new “Teflon Don.”

The Democratic Party is going through a similar uprising among its members. Hillary Clinton is losing ground to the strange populist Bernie Sanders and even worse, she no longer enjoys a hefty advantage over the Republicans including. Trump.

Hillary has an honesty problem, plain and simple. Now that the FBI is investigating her whole email debacle, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she is charged with crimes. Mishandling classified information is no joke. Just ask Gen. David Patraeus.

Mrs. Clinton is upside down with voters. More voters (more than 50 percent) see her unfavorably than favorably. I’m one of them. It seems the public isn’t buying the traditional Clinton spin team’s nonsense. She is in real trouble.

Joe Biden is now the guy who rides to the Democratic Party’s rescue? Possibly but a candidacy born of a party’s desperation is kind of sad.

The irony in all of this is that Republicans have a real opening to take the White House in 2016. So what do they do? Start a love affair with Donald Trump.